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Subject: God Bless Robert E. Lee

In another thread, the song “God Bless Robert E. Lee” came up. John has recorded many historical songs and sagas, but this one is my favorite. It showed up on 1983’s “Johnny 99” album, which included the classic “Highway Patrolman” (my favorite JRC performance and one of the songs he sang at the Carter Fold in September 2002, his last extended set to date). So of course “Johnny 99” is dear to my heart. “God Bless” was written by Mack Vickery and Bobby Borchers, and is the only song by those writers that John ever recorded. He had been singing the song in concert for a couple of years before he went into the studio with it. He first sang it on June 20, 1982 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; by the time he recorded it in April 1984 he had evolved the lyrics a little, but it remained a haunting song, helped in no small way by Marty Stuart’s great mandolin. The song—and most of the album—was recorded in Hollywood with producer Brian Ahern, who was married at the time to Emmylou Harris and was also her producer. John’s son-in-law Rodney Crowell played in Harris’ Hot Band. Ahern had produced 1979’s “Silver” album, and although the project spawned the hit “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” the album was not a commercial success and John did not really like some of the funky production on many of the songs, so Ahern did not work on the followup, “Rockabilly Blues,” which Earl Ball produced.

To be fair, the collaboration was actually an artistic success (although definitely a different JRC sound, odd since this was his 25th anniversary album, though), but John was very distracted at this point in his life. He was working on two different record projects at the same time: “Silver;” and what would become the epic “A Believer Sings the Truth.” Not only that, he was working on each at different studios: “Believer” at Columbia Studios and “Silver” at Jack Clement’s for Ahern (which is ironic, because Columbia ended up refusing to release “Believer,” and for a while John’s contract with them lapsed due to the ill feelings. “Believer” ended up being released on Cachet Records, which promptly went belly up, necessitating John having to buy his own records back). Mother Maybelle Carter had died a few months earlier and, in fact, he began work on “Believer” just three days after getting back from Poor Valley, where he spoke at Sara Carter’s funeral there. Then in May (1979) John fired Marshall Grant, ending a 25 year collaboration which dated from the beginning. So it is possible that the turmoil had a lot to do with how John remembered the project. (During this period, Ahern also recorded Harris and John for her “Roses in the Snow” album. One duet made the album, “Jordan,” although “Old Rugged Cross” was also done, and Ahern contacted John last September and got permission to release it on a special compilation due next month.)

 

So, after going through Ball, Clement (for “Adventures of Johnny Cash”), and the wholly unpleasant work with Billy Sherrill (on “The Baron), John ended back up with Ahern. Again, this was a time of turmoil. Marty Robbins and (former producer) Don Law had died in December 1982; on Christmas Day armed gunmen burst in on a family gathering in Jamaica, terrorizing and traumatizing the entire family; daughter Cindy married John’s band member Marty Stuart on March 31 (1983); and a European tour was on the horizon. In between, John squeezed in time to go to California, where Ahern had set up shop. Although we now appreciate many of the songs, the fact is the album was released with barely a whimper and was the catalyst for Columbia forcing John back to work with Billy Sherrill, the result of which was so atrocious that almost nothing (except “Chicken In Black,” of all things) has seen the light of day, and the end with Columbia came quick and fierce afterwards. On top of that, John was later to state Ahern “went producer” on him and made decisions on song choices, session personnel and arrangements which were unpopular with the artist, so the entire experience was apparently rather awful.

 

But it DID leave us “God Bless Robert E. Lee.” How John got it is a winding tale. Mack Vickery tried unsuccessfully to record for Sun Records, but would end up gaining success as a songwriter. He wrote Faron Young’s 1968 hit “She Went a Little Bit Further,” with Merle Kilgore, John’s best man at his wedding to June (and the co-writer of “Ring of Fire” and “Wolverton Mountain”). He was also a frequent collaborator with Wayne Kemp and Bobby Borchers (writing “Jamestown Ferry,” “I’m the Only Hell My Mama Ever Raised,” and “I’ll Leave This World Loving You,” to name a few). Kemp was the writer of “Image of Me” and “Next In Line” for Conway Twitty, and co-wrote “Darling You Know I Wouldn’t Lie” with Red Lane. Lane was a staff writer at House of Cash and wrote and recorded “The World Needs a Melody” in 1971 which was covered by the Carter Family and John the next year. In 1976 Don Davis, who was Anita Carter’s ex-husband, was producing John and came across a Kemp song that the writer was planning on releasing himself, but got Kemp to give it to Davis for John. That song was “One Piece At a Time,” and it would be John’s last #1 song (in 1976). Kemp and Mack Vickery collaborated on George Strait’s “The Fireman” in 1981, and joined with Bobby Borchers to write Strait’s “My Old Flame Is Burnin’ Another Honky Tonk Down.” So, Kemp’s connection to John through “One Piece At a Time” extended back to Red Lane and down to Vickery, with his Kilgore tie, and Borchers, the two who gave him “God Bless Robert E. Lee” in 1982.

 

Mark